


Prodigy Violinist

by Aoi_Hikari



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: F/M, Horror, Murder, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 07:56:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15626235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoi_Hikari/pseuds/Aoi_Hikari
Summary: "Rei, any creative activity is directly influenced by your mood. It is important to tune yourself into the beat of music you’re going to play, before you can bestow emotions on others."





	Prodigy Violinist

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Prodigy Violinist](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/405207) by Trixer. 



Today Gendo decided to check on Ayanami in person. Poor girl spent all her day in her scuffed little room in the outskirts of the city. “What might she be doing there?” he thought and delicately knocked her apartment’s door.  
Two minutes later he knocked again, but there was still no response. In the end Gendo put his ear against the door and froze, trying to hear any sign of sound from inside.  
The minutes of waiting were not for nothing – a soft, barely hearable, but gradually becoming stronger, violin played in the apartment. In youth Gendo was also engaged in music, so he recognized the sad melody at once. Not daring to move he stood still in fascination, enjoying the heart-crushing music, and only when the melody faded down he let himself breathe out.  
“Come in”, said the voice from the other side of a wooden wall.  
Obeying the voice, filled with grief and sadness, he entered the apartment, mumbling something in admiration. What an irony – the door wasn’t even locked!  
“Rei… your playing is magnificent…” Ikari, Sr. whispered to the albino girl, who was sitting on the chair in the middle of dark empty room.  
“Thank you”, Ayanami put the instrument away and looked anxiously at Gendo.  
“Is something bothering you?”  
Rei thought for a moment or two how to formulate her question.  
“I played good today. Yesterday I played the same. But today was better”, she paused. “I don’t know how to explain it”.  
Gendo smiled to a girl and sat on the chair in front of her.  
“Rei, any creative activity is directly influenced by your mood. It is important to tune yourself into the beat of music you’re going to play, before you can bestow emotions on others”.  
Ayanami gave it a thought. After a couple of seconds she nodded.

***

After the lessons were over Rei headed to the music classroom. Unlike her “cave” it had at least some acoustics.  
“Ikari-kun?” she raised her brow a little, which indicated an utmost wonder for her.  
“Ayanami?” Shinji was surprised not less than her. “You go in for music too?” he nodded to a small case in her hands.  
“Y-yes…” her lily cheeks turned a little red as if she was caught doing something shameful.  
“Great!” Shinji carefully put his cello in the corner. “You know, it’s kinda boring to play here alone…” his voice grew weaker, seems he was shy of the beautiful girl.  
Ayanami was still standing at the door, not daring to enter the classroom. Shy Ikari was so glad that she came… and the girl herself was glad to discover their hobbies matched. Why did she feel good just thinking of it? She couldn’t find the answer to that question.  
“When I play alone, music comes out to be so sad…” she said.  
Shinji inhaled more air and burst out:  
“Let’s play something together?”  
Cicadas murmured softly outside the window. The girl’s eyes were lowered and she silently examined patches of light from the setting sun on her shoes as if she found something interesting in them.  
“Okay, let’s try…” she whispered in the end, trying to hide her cheeks turning red again.

***

Ayanami spent weekends in parks, gardens and other placed where one can unite with the nature. She enjoyed birds singing, listened to the trees whispering and fallen leaves rustling, letting her ears to rest from annoying artificial noises made by man.  
But today everything was messed up. For some reason birds didn’t sing and cars clatter dampened ducks quacking in the pond. Everything seemed to be wrong in some way. Wherever she went, she could only feel rejection and loneliness, that damn noise, alien to animated nature, was following her everywhere.  
Civilization clattering drilled her head. It scared her, got under her skin, made her twitch and jump on the bench because of it’s ignorance and complete absence of harmony.  
In an outburst of despair she ran to the sea. The only place the man had yet to dampen with his noise. There weren’t any shouting builders, smoking factories or car alarms crying merging in a single shriek, nothing that we’re long used for that we don’t pay it any attention.  
As soon as her feet felt the soft sand, all the problems retreated. She slowed her pace and came to the very border of water with her heart aflutter. With all the senses that the nature gave us she tried to capture that beautiful ethereal and light feeling of peace and tranquility.  
“First Child, aren’t you?” a boy with ash-gray hair was slowly coming towards Rei along the coastline. He held a little kitten in his hands.  
“Yes…” Ayanami whispered softly without averting her eyes from the sea. Salty sea breeze pleasantly ran through her hair and the waves dashed against the rocks, gradually relieving the stress that accumulated during being in the urban hustle. Seagulls were flying somewhere on the edge of the horizon and the sun was slowly sinking in the water, leaving its celestial station without haste.  
“You know, I’m sorry to kill this kitten…” the boy suddenly spoke, eyeing a small and warm bundle of life that was quietly sleeping in his hands.  
“Why?” she wondered.  
He only smiled.  
“You are really the same as me, Ayanami Rei”.  
He made a little pause, letting another wave to dash against the rocks.  
“All right, I’ll answer you. A terrible and painful death awaits this kitten. I could kill it right now and with that spare it of further suffering. But I won’t do that, because…”  
She was listening carefully.  
“…I want to give it to you, Rei”.

***

Rei got up from the bed, stepped up to the window and raised the curtains. It didn’t help. Then Rei jerked the window open and fresh nightly air burst into the room, feeling pleasantly cool on girls face. It calmed her a bit, but from a moonlit lawn trills of someone’s laughter reached Rei’s ear. Seems, her peers are going to have fun until morning. What pissed her off the most is that the laughter was truthful. It was cheerful, joyful and very sincere. Those guys were enjoying whatever they were doing. Irritated, Ayanami closed the window.

The moon lit her pale skin, dying it into light silver color. Her red eyes reflected the celestial body the amorous twosomes so loved to walk under. The truth slowly crawled closer, gradually edging and taking a from comprehensible for human mind, her soul bit by bit began to seize that slipping truth, Ayanami literally glowed upon realizing the truth that came to her, but then the damn moon hid behind the clouds, taking away the wonderful feeling of harmony and ease.

The girl’s delicate face squirmed in a terrible grimace.

***

Ayanami was sitting in the music classroom, in splendid solitude she played a very soft and melancholic melody filled with grief and sadness. Violin’s gentle song calmed her nerves, and anyone who was lucky to pass by the music classroom stopped to appreciate the atmosphere of unlimited tranquility and serenity.

But the violin’s melody changed. A moment passes and Rei is used the bow totally different. Softly touching the violin, like an experienced doozer it slowly drove it to ecstasy, making stretched strings soulfully groan in silence.

Rei kept playing as she felt the loneliness of her heart seamlessly turn into musical sounds of violin. The girl’s soul boiled, screamed and cried of ache and bitterness and tears were forming in the corners of her bloody-red eyes ready to pour in torrents any moment. But Ayanami only held the violin tighter and the bow with renewed vigour assaulted the strings making them sing in a painful agony. Finally she lowered the bow and with the back of her hand dashed away the tears that welled up in her eyes. The stunning silence of the empty classroom was more of a reward for her than the roaring applause of a crowd of thousands that understood nothing in real music for soul and heart.

***

“Ayanami, why did you refuse to play together with Ikari? You two were very good at it…” The music teacher suddenly burst into the classroom, ruining it’s musical idyll at once. A bit irritated Rei lowered the bow and answered not looking at the woman:  
“My music loses its meaning when one interferes with it unfolding”.  
The teacher frowned:  
“Rei, you have the talent, however I can’t possibly let you perform solo. It would be unjust to other aspiring musicians”.  
“I play for myself”, the girl snapped.  
“But without people’s acknowledgment your playing’s…” the teacher wanted to object, but Ayanami broke off midword:  
“There’s no need for it, Miyamura-sensei. I’m rehearsing, please, don’t interfere with me”.

The upset teacher left the room. All her life she strived for fame, maybe that’s why she always got talented students. Maybe that’s why she became a teacher, selfishly wanting to thrive on someone else’s talent, as she didn’t have one of her own.

Waiting for the annoying heels clicking to cease, the girl took the bow in her hands again and raised a viscous but very touching melody, which echoed empty school corridors until late night.

***

Rei caught a cold and was absent from school. Shinji decided to go and check on his unwell classmate. Or rather Ritsuko asked him to hand the new NERV id-card to the First Child. But even a depressive teen had enough sense to see what the old blonde was actually up to. He wondered if the mission was passed on her from above or she decided to take some initiative of her own? Or maybe she just wanted to help the two lost hearts to find reach other? No, that one is unlikely.

Trembling as a schoolmiss before her first exam, Shinji knocked Ayanami’s apartment door. It wasn’t unlocked. Slowly pushing it, he dared to make a little step inside that dark and cold residence, where life was like on hold and any sound was mercilessly absorbed by silent walls. The boy could not believe Rei lived in such a horrible and, frankly speaking, creepy place that made you want to run away and never come back.

Overcoming his fear (it’s just a dark room, what’s there to fear?) he called for Ayanami. The sound of his voice was momentarily choked off by the walls that showed no mercy to the visitor. It was like if the space itself in this room ganged up against him, the only alien object in this uncanny apartment. “No wonder Rei is so quiet…” Shinji thought, making few more steps into the squeezing darkness. For a moment he thought he was two bright red eyes glowing in the darkness, but that moment was so fleering he didn’t trust it and blamed the miracles of optics for it. 

His eyes slowly accommodated to the darkness and in the ghostly twilight Shinji saw a violin on the floor. One string was missing. The other three were stained in blood.  
“Ayanami…” Shinji whispered quietly, clutching his head.  
It appeared he clutched it a bit early. A bump of something very heavy instantly sent him to the land of circles of different colors.

***

Very slowly Shinji returned to his senses, gradually recovering from the dishonest blow from his back. First he slightly opened his eyes to see the world spinning around, spread against his pupils as butter against the bread. He moaned as along with sight a terrible headache returned to him.

Suddenly something very thin squeezed his throat like a constrictor, cutting his moans off at once, turning them into constrained croaking. His hearing returned as a crazy but slowly fading ringing.  
“You know, I’m sorry to kill you, Ikari-kun…” Ayanami whispered in a voice full with terrifying sadness and detachment. She loosened the garrote a bit to let Shinji have a work.  
“Argh… cough… Ayanami… what are you… krrr… saying… khh…” Shinji croaked feeling his body starting unnaturally twitching.  
And though the boy couldn’t see her face he could swear Ayanami made a sad smile.  
“Music is a complicated process of expressing one’s inner world in acoustic images. For purity and truthfulness of music it is necessary for it to come from here, from the soul”, Ayanami put her hand on her heart, loosening the grasp for a couple of seconds.  
“Rgkhm… Ayana… mi… I don’t… uuuun… deer… krgh… stand…” Shinji wheezed, hungrily gulping for air.  
Rei only sighed:  
“Shinji, it would be hard for you to understand. You don’t have that expressivity that makes people cry during the concert. Yes, you do play music. But you don’t put your soul in it. That’s why it’s more like just a set of sounds”.  
Shinji’s pupils looked like two big saucers. His whole appearance was a plea: “No, no! Forgive me! I will play better! Just for Christ’s sake don’t kill me!”  
“You got me wrong. Please, hear me out”.  
Yeah, sure. When you’re lying on the floor with a garrote on your neck – relax and listen is the easiest thing to do.  
Meanwhile Ayanami continued:  
“The nature burdened me with the ability to feel emotions. Yes, sometimes I grasped something that helped me play better, but it was not enough. I needed inspiration. Real inspiration, to create music making hearts explode with a powerful bouquet of emotions.  
I thought I would find my inspiration in nature. I listened to the singing of the birds, the whisper of the trees, the heartbeat of waves break, but… It was imitation. One can’t excel the nature, and also one can’t create a copy better that the original. I needed my very own emotions”.  
Her monologue of inspiration and emotions, itself lacking any hints of expression, sounded truly creepy.  
“Then I got myself a kitten. I tried to love it and at first it even worked. It became my source of inspiration.  
But then it appeared the kitten had to be walked. It had to be fed. It made the search for inspiration too difficult. Too much time went out for the kitten and too little remained for the music. So I went the other way.  
With a kitchen knife I cut off kitten’s hindpaw. The knife was blunt, so it cut through the paw slowly. Watching the kitten’s agony I experienced similar emotions, but they were too bleak. I could copy its pain and suffering, but it would again be only poor imitation. Then I took a string from the violin and strangled the kitten. Soaked in its blood, its pain, its suffering, the string began to emit truly heavenly sounds, besides I was hugely sorry for the poor kitten, which of course couldn’t not affect my playing.  
But with time the sorrow of loss became dull. Again I needed to find a source of inspiration. Then after the lessons I strangled Miyamura-sensei with another string. I felt satisfied inside seeing the string tearing her throat to blood. But the satisfaction couldn’t inspire me for as long as sadness did. I had to cut my wrists to feel the real physical pain for myself.  
Three strings of my violin are stained in blood, agony and suffering. But the inspiration visits me rarer and rarer…  
However, I know what to do. I love you, Ikari-kun. And if I strangle you with this last fourth string, I’m sure your constrained wheeze will anchor in my memory for long, giving me a constant stimulus for grief.  
For true inspiration.


End file.
